Spring is here finally!

Sunny all day and over 50 degrees F. Spent hours outside today, cleaning up, weeding and planting- of course I've been buying plants already this year. Some great stuff- a Cherry Blossom delphinium (pale, pale pink), doronicum (leopard's bane), Siberian iris crowns (a streaky purple and white one), and these beauties:

Heuchera 'Beaujolais' It's a wonderful combo of copper and purple when the sun hits it.

Heuchera 'Hercules'- variegated leaves and bright flowers!

Polemonium 'Stairway to Heaven'. I already had 'Brise d'Anjou', but it doesn't have the pink in the leaves. I hope this color stays through out the season!

Now I'm exhausted. I think I over did it after being ill for a week. I will sleep early tonight, I think.

A Dreary End to August

It is not quite September and I am about to put the winter blankets on the bed, because I’ve spent the last two nights shivering despite having the electric blanket on high all night. It’s almost gotten down the freezing on those nights, but so far no damage to the tender plants. I’d be quite upset if, after the late, late spring we had, we had an early frost, effectively making our summer less than two months long this year. No, ‘quite upset’ doesn’t cover it. ‘Seething ball of anger and frustration’ would be more accurate.

We never got the hanging baskets made, so I am finally putting those petunias into the garden. Seems silly, but they’re pretty tough. I’ve had petunias blooming on Thanksgiving before, so I could conceivably have three months of bloom from them. I’m assuming we won’t have three feet of snow in October, but after the earlier part of the year, nothing would surprise me.

I didn’t get anything entered in the fair this year because I didn’t read the premium book and they moved the entry day from Tuesday to Sunday. The fair people *never* do anything on Sunday, because the churches complained about it the one year they did. I discovered this little fact about ½ hour before entries closed. Bah. I have some consolation in knowing that I wasn’t the only one who got surprised by this and missed the boat. No one had any jewelry entered. There was a lot less needlework entered, and there was only about ½ the amount of art there usually is. Disappointing.

This is the clearest picture I was able to get of this Guinea hen. Her head just never stopped moving.

This was my favorite quilt at the fair; I voted for it for people's choice. I love the Japanese crests appliqued on it! 

A Folly of Poultry

We have just ordered baby chicks and ducklings over the internet. (Why do we say ‘baby chicks’? That’s like ‘tuna fish’) We don’t know when we’ll get them; the hatching of all the different varieties we ordered must come off at the same time for them to ship them all in one box, like some harmonic convergence of poultry. They must all ship in one box to keep each other warm. We ordered four varieties of chickens and two types of duck; hopefully there will be a launch window for them this spring. With six varieties of bird all having to hatch on the same day, it’ll be a touchy thing.

We were only going to order two types of chicken- Barred Rocks and Americaunas- but the Marek’s vaccinations is a $10 minimum at 15 cents a chick. Tim’s mind could not get around spending ten dollars for a $1.50 job, so he figured that by ordering twice as many birds we’ll get a little more of our monies worth out of the $10. So now we are also getting five White Rocks and five Cherry Eggers as well. Come autumn, we will be up to our butts in eggs.

We are also getting three Swedish Black ducks, because they are calm natured and we should be able to turn them loose in the garden during the day for slug patrol and still be able to capture them in the evening. And three Khaki Campbells, because they lay a lot of eggs. As if we’ll need more eggs with all those chickens.

So now we will wait in suspense, wondering when we’ll get an email saying “They’re on their way! And by the way, to fill your order in this time frame, we’ve had to substitute 6 geese for the ducklings!” *shudder*

The Unseemly Haste to Plant

It happens every year, of course, but this year it’s earlier than usual. With the lack of snow and the warmer than normal days, it’s hard to resist. Roses are starting to leaf out, perennials are coming up. And the nurseries have young plants for sale, at least a month earlier than average. How can a person resist?

It would be foolish to plant now. For one thing, our average last frost is the middle of May, and it’s usually later than that. But even if the plants put out are hardy ones, the soil cannot be worked yet. Except for the top inch, it’s still got that jelly-like texture. If it’s worked now, before it’s dried out, it will turn into concrete and not be a good texture again until after next winter’s multiple freeze-thaw cycles break it up. That, or a little low level atomic testing. Our soil is still wet enough that the weeding I’ve been doing has all been from the paths and edges. The few times I’ve put my foot out into the garden beds, it’s sunk down and created a footprint that I suspect will be there until next spring. So I resist, watching the weeds that I can’t reach grow taller, and wishing I could plant things.

I’m not totally virtuous, though. I’m starting to amass a collection of plants that have followed me home. The hardy ones – the white salvia, the variegated polemonium- live on the porch night and day. Another one followed me home today, a purple anemone. It’s in for the night because it’s been in a greenhouse and I don’t know how cold it got in there at night, but it’ll only take it a few days before it can be left out full time. Other things go out during the day and spend the nights inside- the flat of baby spinach (which Banshee seems intent on having for baby salad greens), the rooted cuttings of privet and mandevilla. The tomatoes, peppers and other things have been seeded and soon those flats will need light during the day. We’re working on getting the greenhouse usable again, but it’s a long, hard task of taking it almost completely apart and putting it up again. We’ll be up to our waists in seedlings before it is ready to receive plants. Why does the human soul have to be so keen to start the gardening season? By midsummer, I’ll be sick of weeding and watering and ready for fall!